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Ripping off the Victorian British Empire

R

redwalker

SOC-12
In the interests of Traveller, I am trying to rip off the cool parts of the Victorian British Empire.

So far I have:
1) R. F. Burton, Explorer, linguist, thinker.
2) The British East India Company.
3) Singapore and Hong Kong.
4) H.R. Haggard's Alan Quartermain. I'm picking through King Solomon's Mines with a fine-tooth comb and a notebook.

Suggestions are welcome.
 
Tbeard 1999 is running a fantastic campaign, from the sound of it, that centers around the ZULU conflicts with the British. You might consider that, too.
 
5) Kipling (thanks R.T.)
6) Zulus - mental note, where can I find details on Tbeard1999's campaign? (thanks s4)
7) Flashman! I've been meaning to look into getting a copy of at least one of those books! (thanks I)
8) Cecil Rhodes (thanks Ico)

and before I move on to questions for Icosahedron,
9) Thomas Carlyle
10) A. Conan Doyle as imperialist propagandist -- see
http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEnglish/imperial/india/conan-doyle.htm

Questions for Icosahedron:
a) I assume that Mason was the writer of a book called "Four Feathers"? Okay, yes, I've just found it at:
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/M/MasonAEW/prose/fourfeathers/index.html
b) ditto for Ardrey and Khartoum-- no, I guess that's a movie. I can look for it. Thanks.
c) as for Victorian GURPS -- I have seen the book, GURPS Steampunk... and I have seen the links at:
http://www.codepoet.org/~markw/gurps/
and there's an official supplement called GURPS Steam-Tech ...
when you say "Victorian GURPS" do you mean any book in particular? Thanks
 
redwalker said:
In the interests of Traveller, I am trying to rip off the cool parts of the Victorian British Empire.

So far I have:
1) R. F. Burton, Explorer, linguist, thinker.
Click to expand...
Swordsman.
2) The British East India Company.
Click to expand...
Coming to the end of its run in Victorian times. The Government took over India after the Mutiny, about 1859.
3) Singapore and Hong Kong.
Click to expand...
A.J. Raffles.
4) H.R. Haggard's Alan Quartermain. I'm picking through King Solomon's Mines with a fine-tooth comb and a notebook.

Suggestions are welcome.
Click to expand...
Rudyard Kipling. Kipple 'til you drop.
 
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redwalker said:
Questions for Icosahedron:
and there's an official supplement called GURPS Steam-Tech ...
when you say "Victorian GURPS" do you mean any book in particular? Thanks
Click to expand...

Sorry, yes, Steamtech. (Not something I've used myself, just heard of it).

You could do worse than look up the biography of Winston Churchill, too.
 
pendragonman said:
Crimean War histories. Clavell's "Tai Pan" and "Gaigin" will work too.
Click to expand...

I started reading "Shogun" years ago but never finished it. As chance would have it, I have been engrossed in "Flashman in the Great Game" since this afternoon -- but I can look for Clavell too.

Andrew Boulton said:
Forgotten Futures might give you a few ideas.

http://www.forgottenfutures.com/
Click to expand...

I should have given it top billing. FF kicked off my re-addiction to Victoriana last year. For some reason it always gets me onto Jules Verne's stories.
 
redwalker said:
In the interests of Traveller, I am trying to rip off the cool parts of the Victorian British Empire.

So far I have:
1) R. F. Burton, Explorer, linguist, thinker.
2) The British East India Company.
3) Singapore and Hong Kong.
4) H.R. Haggard's Alan Quartermain. I'm picking through King Solomon's Mines with a fine-tooth comb and a notebook.
Click to expand...
That's Quatermain, not Quartermain. Surprising how many get it wrong. Also surprising how much such a trivial little error bugs me ;).

Suggestions:

James Brooke, the Rajah of Sarawak.

John Buchan's books are of the Edwardian rather than the Victorian Age, but many of his characters would fit right in.



Hans
 
An extensive upper class trained in elite schools to be the next generation of Imperial bureacrats and decision makers - government by nobility!

Missionaries that are also explorers - or is that James T Kirk ;)
 
Mithras said:
An extensive upper class trained in elite schools to be the next generation of Imperial bureacrats and decision makers - government by nobility!

Missionaries that are also explorers - or is that James T Kirk ;)
Click to expand...


James T Kirk would be a Royal Navy officer that spends his time patrolling the sea lanes, chasing pirates and slavers, protecting Her Majesty's interests in local hot spots, conducting politics with local rulers and exploring. He could easily have been a Victorian-just change his mannerisms a little. Captain Kirk did basically the same sorts of things.
 
Andrew Boulton said:
Kirk was (loosely) based on Hornblower.
Click to expand...

Hornblower did things like that in Admiral Hornblower. In most of them he was fighting the French. Also Hornblower was a little more uptight and didn't have quite such a way with the ladies. Even though he won the jackpot on Barbara whom he not only liked but was related to the Wellesley's.
But in fact I heard that Kirk was based on Hornblower as well.
 
jatay3 said:
He could easily have been a Victorian-just change his mannerisms a little. Captain Kirk did basically the same sorts of things.
Click to expand...

Don't think the idea of a Victorian lady-killer is strange either. The connotations of the word "Victorian" is mostly about how they compared with modern times. And anyway, they didn't act "Victorian" when they were safely away from England. Maybe that is why so many of them wished to go adventuring.
 
Andrew Boulton said:
Kirk was (loosely) based on Hornblower.
Click to expand...
For Traveller inspiration another Hornblower-inspired SF hero is much better: A. Bertram Chandler's John Grimes[*]. There's about a score of books about him, and they run the gamut from junior officer in the spit and polish Federation Survey Service (~Royal Navy/Imperial Navy) through independent mercenary captain to Chief Superintendent of Rim Runners (a shipping line) and Commodore of the Rim Worlds Naval Reserve (~pocket empire navy).


[*] Who is descended from Horatio Hornblower on his mother's side ;-).



Hans
 
rancke said:
[*] Who is descended from Horatio Hornblower on his mother's side ;-).



Hans
Click to expand...

Now that was a splendid idea. It would go well in ISW. By Strephon's reign, I suppose to much time would have passed. Though Hornblower might have become an iconic hero and people might claim to be descended from him the way people claim to be descended from Ghenghis Khan.
 
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